Renegades debut in the Paladins Premier League

Posted by Detroit Renegades on March 28, 2018

Renegades: PPL - Week 1

RNG Paladins’ Week 1 match against Team EnvyUs would be an early test of composure for the new players on each side. NV felt the need to make changes after only finishing in fourth with a 3-5 record last season. Both teams started new Front Line and Flex players: Renegades’ Leonardo “Hiro” Zamora, Lucxsan “Poison1999” Kandasamy and EnvyUs’ Ryan “RuBBu” Wong, Sean “rockmonkey” Boswell. The third new starter for Renegades was Support player Daniel “Viral” Madrid. The offseason is in the past, how about we get into the games?

Map 1: Jaguar Falls

Renegades looked to start their season off with a bang by stomping Team EnvyUs as quickly as possible. Why do I say that? Triple tank compositions like the one ran by RNG Paladins (Torvald, Fernando, and Ash) do really well for the first few points but don’t have enough damage to compete later into the match. Another thing to note as well is that Renegades had three area damage dealers. Team EnvyUs decided to run two healers to try and keep their team alive in the early game under the pressure from the three RNG Paladins tanks I mentioned before. It’s still crazy to think that Renegades picked up three tanks even though three tanks were banned (out of four bans).

Team EnvyUs’ early 63% hold of the objective and ultimates off the mark from Hiro and Viral (Fernando and Seris) led to their capture of the first point. Although Team EnvyUs was held for awhile under the bridge and at the final bend, they still converted the payload in the end on the back of a well placed Grumpy Bomb by Paul “randomnoobtv” Palmisano. Renegades’ attempt to successfully engage NV in the corridor between the jaguar statue and the point came up empty. They were able to breach into the room between these two landmarks but couldn’t get on the point for too long, allowing Team EnvyUs to take the 3-0 lead. It didn’t take Team EnvyUs long to finish the 4-0 clean sweep, as they had over 90 seconds left to finish the push. One more thing: Totemic Ward eats Seris ultimates for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Map 2: Brightmarsh

It’s kind of ironic that Team EnvyUs drafted a vast majority of the composition they just stomped on when it came out of Renegades. The only change NV made was swapping out the third tank (Fernando) for Bomb King. Renegades, on the other hand, took a lot of Team EnvyUs’ draft from the previous map: Talus, Jenos, and Barik. Who can play the other team’s comp better?

RNG Paladins started Brightmarsh off strong with a 99% hold of the objective without giving NV an inch. Although randomnoobtv’s pick on Dylan “Cliku” Mohne’s Barik turned the tide for a little bit, it ultimately wasn’t enough for NV to keep their dominance in the series. Simply put, Renegades’ payload push wasn’t looking too good. They only had it pushed about 40% of the way with overtime ticking. Overtime must’ve woken them up, as they pushed the payload all the way to the brink of completion after delaying the inevitable for quite some time. Renegades captured their second point of the map to make the score 2-1 because they got two early picks and shut down randomnoobtv’s King Bomb, an ultimate that normally clears the point quite well. What’s interesting is that RNG Paladins’ second payload push didn’t go as far as their first one despite starting off a lot better. What is the one word I’d use to describe how NV won that last fight to secure the 3-2 lead? Circles. Why? Ash + Bomb King + Small Hallway = dead RNG Paladins lineup. NV’s game clinching payload push can be described as an unstoppable force meeting an easily moved object, as they finished the push with over a minute remaining.

Map 3: Serpent Beach

The thing that caught my eye in this draft is the double Support composition of Seris, Pip from NV and the double flanker loadout of Cassie, Androxus from Renegades. Pip was given to randomnoobtv as a substitute to Bomb King because Bomb King was banned by RNG Paladins’ first ban.

Georges “Lokii” Chalhoub picked up a double kill on the balcony near the fountain to give his team the space to capture the first objective. Renegades’ payload push didn’t get past the 60% mark, right under the bridge between the two buildings. NV managed to take a 2-1 lead while only giving 9% of the point to Renegades. With inches left to go in the push, Renegades tied up the game at two with a last second defense. Team EnvyUs was able to pin their enemies in their spawn to take the third point. Eighty percent of the path is how far Team EnvyUs managed to get before being stopped by Renegades. RNG Paladins took their first map of the series while capturing the 4-3 point by the score of 100% to 57%.

Map 4: Stone Keep

The most interesting matchup on this map when you look at the draft is between NV’s Sha Lin and Renegades’ Drogoz. More kills on the Drogoz will mean less Dragon Punches, leading to longer lives for Inara and Makoa of Team EnvyUs. RNG Paladins was hoping that Lokii’s Kinessa could kill Sha Lin before he could take out Drogoz.

A sniper battle win by rockmonkey (Sha Lin) over Lokii gave his team the space to capture the first objective of the map after Renegades’ Kinessa kept her enemies under cover for a bit. Team EnvyUs easily pushed up to the final archway but had to retreat because they were under heavy fire from the high ground. They returned to the front lines, won the war in the trenches, and converted the payload because Lokii just couldn’t shoot them all fast enough. The second capture point of the map came down to one final teamfight. That fight didn’t go well for Renegades because their tanks melted like butter to start the fight and their back line wasn’t too far behind them. It was on the final payload push of the map and series that the members of RNG Paladins fell like dominoes and NV captured another 4-0 victory.

RNG Paladins now has a 0-1 match record and a 1-3 match record in the NA PPL with 7 matches left to play. Their next matches are on April 1 and are against SK Gaming (0-2) at 3pm EST and G2 Esports (2-0) at 6:30pm EST! To continue to keep up to date with our Paladins team, follow us on Twitter at @Renegades. To keep up with all that is Paladins esports, follow @PaladinsPro on Twitter and visit esports.paladins.com.

#RNGWIN

Article written by Jacob “WordsWinWars” Russell (@WordsJR on Twitter).